Creating Greeting Cards with LibreOffice Writer - Four-Page Card - Steps

Sep 24, 2026

Guide for creating custom four-page greeting cards using LibreOffice Writer, built from a single 8 1/2 by 11 sheet folded in half twice. The instructions cover planning the card’s four-page orientation, creating a new Writer document and a dedicated page style with 0.50 margins, and setting up folding-friendly layout guides using transparent rectangles. The workflow continues with copying/pasting guide rectangles, positioning them precisely with coordinates, and adding text boxes for personalized messages on the card.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryForms

FormatPDF

Pages8

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Plan Ahead

Page 1: Page Style Setup

Page 2: Card Layout with Rectangle Guides

Page 3: Positioning Additional Sections

Adding Text

Creating Greeting Cards with LibreOffice Writer Introduction If you want to create your own greeting cards, but you do not want to spend money on special software, you are in luck. It turns out that with just a little effort you can use LibreOffice Writer to create custom greeting cards. The instructions in this document were created using LibreOffice Writer 7.2. The following instructions are for creating a four page greeting card by folding an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper in half twice. Most office supply stores in the USA carry envelopes that are designed to fit this size card. Look for envelopes that are 4 3/8 by 5 3/4 inches. (If you are outside the USA, adjust measurements as required.) Plan Ahead The first step is to determine the relative orientation of the four pages of your greeting card. (This example uses a portrait layout card. Landscape layout could also be used.) Take a piece of paper and fold it twice. For the vertical portrait format book fold card in this project, the sheet must be folded in half twice as shown. ✔ First, fold the sheet in half along a horizontal line (with the sheet in portrait mode).; then fold the sheet a second time. ✔ When you have folded the sheet, write the names of the four pages of the final card on each page (see Figure-1) . Figure-1, A greeting card layout page. When you unfold the sheet you will see how the four pages have to be arranged. ✔ Open a new LibreOffice Writer document. ✔ Select File, Save As , adjust the Save As folderas required, and enter a file Name for your greeting card. | | | --- | | Figure-2, New greeting card document. | Page 1 Creating Greeting Cards with LibreOffice Writer The LibreOffice Writer display is shown in Figure-2. ✔ If the Sidebar is not shown, from the Menubar select View, Sidebar. ✔ In the Sidebar, select the Styles option (1) . ✔ If there are any Custom Paragraph or Page Styles shown in the Custom Styles list, delete them (2) . ✔ If the Drawing Toolbar is not shown, from the Menubar select View, Toolbars, Drawing (3,4) . We will create a custom Page Style for our cards. ✔ In the Sidebar Styles and Formatting option, select the Page Styles option(1) . ✔ With the Custom list on the display, right click in the styles list and select New. ✔ In the Page Style dialog box | | | --- | | Figure-3, Creating a Page Style. | Organizer TAB , enter My Card Page for the Name and Next style.✔ In the Page TAB , enter 0.50 for all four margins (2) . ✔ Make sure Headers and Footers are off(3) . Then, select OK to close the dialog box.✔ In the Styles, Page Styles sidebar, double click on the My Card Page entry. Setting the card page margins to 0.5 will make it easier to calculate precise locations for the different objects placed in the front and back areas of the card. Page 2 |
Creating A Card Layout | | | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Creating A Card Layout | | | | | | | | | | | | Making the four sections of the card fit the page nicely after it is printed and folded is a bit tricky. In the next section, we will create a card layout document with rectangles that can be used as guides to properly locate objects on the different parts of the card. These rectangles can easily be deleted when the card design is finished. | | | | | |
Drag a drawing object means click at the a corner of the object, hold the left mouse button down and drag the mouse cursor to the opposite corner of the object. The Drag function works the same on any Drawing object. | | | | | | ✔ From the Drawing Tool Bar, select the Rectangle tool.
✔ Drag a rectangle from the upper left margin down and to the right a couple of inches. | | | | | | Don’t worry about the size. We will set it precisely in the nextstep.
Figure-3, Greeting a card layout.

✔ Right click on the rectangle and select the Position and Size option from the context menu.✔ In the Position and Size dialog box, enter a wid

FAQs

What software and paper size are used to create the greeting card?

The document uses LibreOffice Writer 7.2 and an 8 1/2 by 11 sheet of paper, folded in half twice to form a four-page card.

How do you set up the page margins and disable headers/footers?

Create a custom page style and set all four margins to 0.50, then make sure headers and footers are off before confirming with OK.

How are rectangle guides created and positioned on the card?

Create an initial rectangle using the Drawing toolbar, set its position and size in the Position and Size dialog (anchored to the page), adjust transparency to 90%, then copy and paste additional rectangles and reposition them using horizontal and vertical coordinates.

Sep 24, 2026

Upload by Well Done